


a ghost in my own bones

by localdisasterisk



Series: ghost + guest [1]
Category: Half-Life VR but the AI is Self-Aware - Fandom
Genre: (ALSO BACKGROUND BECAUSE GORDON DOESN'T NOTICE), ...vaguely, Aftermath of Possession, Body Horror, Canon Disabled Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, DARNOLD MY BELOVED, Dreams and Nightmares, Epic Tomrey QPR (Background), Fake Science, Fanon-Typical Resurrection, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Haircuts, Hospitalization, Literal Sleeping Together, Loss of Control, Loss of Limbs, Minor Character Death, Other, Possession, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Reconciliation, Recovery, Repressed Memories, Reunions, Team Dynamics, Team as Family, Worldbuilding, forzen... is also here, hotly debated star trek: voyager takes, one-sided Benrey/Gordon Freeman, they are FRIENDS goddamnit, worldbuilding (gay and stupid)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 17:14:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29282064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/localdisasterisk/pseuds/localdisasterisk
Summary: Gordon Freeman has a pretty stable life. He wakes up, makes coffee and gets ready for work, gets on the tram and finishes his coffee.He bothers Benrey, tries (and fails) to sneak past Dr. Coolatta in the break room, checks to see if Harold or his new lab assistant, Burgundy, need anything done.He goes home, works a little more on reports or plays Tekken with anyone who'll join, and then he goes to bed again.And then he gets chosen to conduct the Xen Sample experiment. That's fine. It just means he spends less time with his research partner and his mentor while he gets used to the HEV suit.And then he gets chosen to be something's marionette. That one... that one's a little harder to reconcile.
Relationships: Benrey & Gordon Freeman, Gordan Freeman & The Science Team
Series: ghost + guest [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2159229
Comments: 53
Kudos: 77





	1. BATTERY LOW. PLEASE CHARGE THE DEVICE BEFORE CONTINUING.

**Author's Note:**

> hi. this is different to my Usual 'gordon as The Protagonist' bullshit because in this one, the Player is very explicitly Not Really Gordon, whereas in my usual bs, it's WAAAAY more of a blurred line between gordon freeman the protagonist and gordon freeman the just some guy and the player. also, I think it's extremely funny to make content where all of the AI are like "grrr the Player they are so mean and cruel and evil and Fucked Up" because in my mind, the player's always just. 
> 
> "hey. what the FUCK just happened to me. and furthermore what the FUCK is wrong with my GAME."
> 
> anyway. uhh this Fic In General has:  
> -dissociation  
> -loss of control  
> -a lot of the generally upsetting canon stuff (clone hell, gordon losing an arm, benrey boss fight, etc) with various levels of detail  
> -stolen identity? kinda??  
> -risk-typical "it's MY fic and I GET TO CHOOSE THE CANON"  
> -grief and mourning  
> -denial/refusal to accept death  
> -memory loss/repression  
> -weird dream/nightmare sequences  
> -jewish characters written by a gentile author (if there's anything I need to fix and you don't mind leaving a comment, I Will Fix It, but I figured that I should put this upfront.)
> 
> so Be Aware

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one specifically has a Thing abt gordos trying to skip breakfast to get more work done, be advised

Gordon Freeman gets the only warning that he won't get to be himself forever on the tram to work.

(Looking back, he should have told someone. Looking back, he should have realized it wasn't a fluke. Looking back, he can see everything with crystal clarity, and none of it helps.)

His arms seize up, and his mouth drops open of its own accord, and he judders until he is inside of the seat. He thinks, _am I dying?_ He thinks, _will anyone even know?_ He thinks, _how many times is my body going to go around the track before someone finds me?_ "Okay," he says. It's his voice, but it isn't, but it _is,_ but he's not saying anything. "Okay! Alright, it's, uh... oh, _man_ this is bad to look at." He laughs. Gordon cracks his neck, and he is not in control of his own body as he looks down at his hands, flexing them. "Jeez," he says. And then Gordon is sitting on the tram, staring at his own hands, and he can drop them and choke on underground air.

When he gets off the tram, he stumbles into Benrey at their guard post, who braces him with a hand at his arm and a slightly cocked head. They mumble, "you good bro?" Gordon, burning under the security cameras, doesn't drop his head onto their helmet and sigh.

"I don't know," he says, honestly. Benrey's head cocks a little more, and Gordon has spent too much time being stared at to squirm, but he has to fight down the urge to do it anyway. A sample under a microscope. A worm facing down a child with a spade. "Can you... would you mind taking me to the training course?" Gordon asks because the test is soon, and if he can handle himself in the HEV suit, then not being able to handle himself on the tram this morning doesn't matter. It's fine.

(Looking back, it wasn't fine.)

Benrey scowls. "you're fucking... loopy, dude. froot loops. not gonna. uh. s'too much ex hurt shun." They shift their weight, and Gordon shifts with them, like gravity and his scattered brain are trying to hammer Benrey's point home.

"Exertion," Gordon corrects fondly, and Benrey sticks their tongue(s? Gordon can't really tell; it hurts to look too close) out at him.

"can't kill the homies," Benrey says, swiping him into the office and not the training course, and that's the end of that.

Not that it really matters, since Burgundy sends him back to the dorms pretty much as soon as she sees him. "I'm designed to be perfect, Gordon," she says, passing off a sample to a stressed-looking intern and ushering him back out of the office, "I can take over whatever dumb baby shit you had to do."

"I had a _minor_ freakout on the tram—"

"And you're not having a major one in the lab, dipshit!" Nodding to Benrey as they pass him, "83-n."

"13U-125-0ND," Benrey returns, pretending not to be a smug little shit. (Gordon hates when they do that. Benrey and Gundy only ever break out the designations when they're making a point of being professional. Like Gordon hasn't seen them competing over who could eat the most spiders. Assholes.)

* * *

"HELLO!" Dr. Coolatta shouts when Gordon passes by the break room, and even as it stops him in his guilty tracks, he laughs.

"Hello," Gordon says back, backtracking and sitting down across from his research partner, who passes him a root beer and a turkey sandwich. (Dr. Coolatta learned of Gordon's habit of skipping breakfast in favor of lab work or HEV training and started "making extra lunches" that he'd social-etiquette Gordon into eating. Not that Gordon just lets him get away with it.) "Sorry," he says, pushing the food back, "I'm new, I don't– I, I think I'm supposed to be in AnMat?"

"Me– I'm new als– all, uh, too!" The sandwich and soda find themselves in front of Gordon once again. "We can... go to AnMat together! But I gotta– I have to eat, first." Coolatta has yet to lose a game of Get Gordon Freeman To Eat Breakfast, but one of these days, Gordon's going to figure out how to just walk past the break room without him noticing. "It's breakfast," Coolatta adds, smiling, before taking a bite out of a chocolate croissant.

Gordon hums. "Most important meal of the day," he agrees. They've been doing this for the past two months. It's an unspoken rule that if Gordon can't figure out a way to get away from the table, or if he breaks whatever role he's come up with and starts laughing, he has to give in. (Every time Gordon loses time he could have spent getting something done, he curses himself for getting a partner who's quick on his feet _and_ funny.) "Hey, I didn't catch your name?" Gordon tries, more of a stalling tactic than anything he thinks will really work, pushing the food back.

"My name's Tomfoolery," Coolatta says easily, and Gordon snorts, which makes Coolatta laugh, which means Gordon ends up laughing so hard he coughs. Coolatta pats him on the arm with one hand even as he slides the meal back with the other. Grinning, "Good try, Dr. Freeman!"

Gordon says, "Yeah, yeah," as he pops the tab on the root beer. "Thanks for breakfast, Tomfoolery." Coolatta flicks him lightly, and they sit and eat together.

* * *

Dr. Coolatta's taking a personal day, allegedly so he can get his report done without distraction, but honestly, because his father's in dimension and they don't get to see each other that often. Gordon thinks it means that he'll be able to get extra work done today, but Benrey presents him with an Egg McMuffin at the gate (refusing to answer where they got it from, much to Gordon's bemusement) and refuses to let him in until he's eaten. It leads to Gordon getting even _less_ shit done that day because they argued about Star Trek instead of doing _either_ of their jobs. Benrey says a lot of dumb shit, and usually Gordon knows better than to take the bait, but "Janeway and Chakotay were in love" was just _too much._ He had to put his foot down! And... then it took half an hour to realize he hadn't even clocked in yet. Oops.

Gordon, bereft of anything to do that doesn't require a second party, spends the day assisting Harold and Burgundy with their attempts at Cleaner Smog. In between trying to make sense of Gundy's garbled spreadsheet, reminiscing about the hand-cranked centrifuge, and hand-writing the results because _seriously,_ Gundy, it doesn't _matter_ if something's 'perfect' when it's totally incomprehensible, they chat about a potential karaoke night that they all know won't really go anywhere. Gordon doesn't like big crowds, Harold's cybernetic augmentations mean the effect he has on non-Black Mesa technology is... unpredictable, at best, and Gundy is a Lab-Grown Scientist™ who isn't allowed to leave the grounds. (Gordon got her a custom-made sticker reading "Black Mesa Worker Drone, Grown In A Lab, Truckin' And Fuckin' Is All That I Have," three years back, and he still has to suppress a snort every time she uses the clipboard where that sticker found a home.)

"I could get Bubby to join," Gundy says, clearly mischievous, and Harold chuckles good-naturedly. Gordon blinks at them, hoping he's making it evident that he's out of the loop.

Harold – who mentored Gordon for five years, put in recommendations to get him this job, and knows him better than anyone else here – notices the confusion. Shocker. "Bubby was my Research Partner for many years, Gordon! He was one of the very first attempts at a Perfect Scientist, and I'd say it worked out splendidly. It's a shame I never got to introduce you." Harold says, frowning slightly at the end.

Gundy smiles, nodding with something like... pride? Admiration? "Yes, my big brother!" (Gordon always thought it was creepy when, in movies, clones or robots all referred to each other as 'brother' or 'sister,' but it's... kind of sweet when the Scientists do it? They're all so proud of their many siblings and the endless list of accomplishments that Black Mesa could never have boasted if not for them.) "If Dr. Coomer is to be believed, his music taste is horrid," she adds.

"Must be genetic," Gordon says, wry, and he spends the rest of the day's trials avoiding her wrath.

* * *

_From: benny  
yo don't forget!!! new Comapny Policky_

To: benny  
I put my passport on my bedside table  
and a post it note on the mirror  
and I've got a backup in my locker that you don't need to look at. its not expired.  
and also I marked the email unread  
chill.

_From: benny  
ok but if u forget  
i gotta arrest you_

To: benny  
*farquaad point* COP

_From: benny  
TAKE IT BACK_

To: benny  
don't arrest me then Fucker

_From: benny  
fine then i'll jus t have to follow u then. i;ll just have to follow u._


	2. >NEW GAME

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Boy. oh boy. this is the chapter where Gordo Gets Got, so be prepared.
> 
> warnings for:  
> -minor character death  
> -derealization  
> -canon events :(  
> -referenced canonical character death  
> -gratuitous line breaks

Gordon Freeman got the only warning that he wouldn't get to be himself forever on the tram to work. The warning passed unremarked on.  
Gordon is in the backseat of his own brain, watching something else pilot him through life. It doesn't grab his passport from his bedside table, like a _dumbass,_ and it calls his research partner a freak, and it doesn't stop by Gundy's office, and it _tries to kill Benrey._ (Benrey can't die, obviously, and the laser wouldn't have killed them even if they _had_ stood there, but– it tried to fucking kill him.)

The generator explodes and crackles, and everything hurts, and all Gordon can think is, _at least I can't do anything worse._

* * *

Gordon walks right past Burgundy's body. He's walked past a lot of people's bodies, as the thing moving him whispered something to itself about bugged AI and pirated copies, but he didn't know those corpses. They weren't his friends when they were still alive. He knows it's Gundy, even bloodstained and facedown and crushed under a massive computer because her left hand is outstretched, thick silver scar a plain identifier. Half of the clipboard with her custom sticker is missing, kicked off into some corner by the panicked people running away, but half of it is still there, jarred loose from her hand by only a few inches. _"Bla Worl Grc Trucki I T"_ is all that can be read. Gordon can't feel his breath catching in a sob. He just keeps walking.

(He was there when she got that scar on her thumb. She had been showing off her skills with a knife, explaining how thinly she could cut the required red onions, how regularly, without even looking. They didn't need a machine to get them all the same size to measure how quickly the acid would eat away at them, not when Gundy was there. And then she'd fucked up and cut her thumb and bled all over the slides of red onion cells. And now Gordon fucked up, and she's bleeding all over the dirty tiled floors.)

He hears his voice saying, "No, c'mon, you know your fucking name, dude."

"Fine," says the Scientist. "...Bubby."

Gordon is silent. Even as he speaks, he's silent. Even as he finds the fraying threads of his thoughts and manages to knit together something like _I think I killed your little sister,_ and even as he breaks down into tears, he is silent.

* * *

Dr. Coolatta knows.

Gordon can't communicate, and the-thing-that-isn't-and-is-him hasn't noticed, but _Dr. Coolatta knows._ It's sunshine at the end of the tunnel. It's a lighthouse in a hurricane. 

Except, he can't tell anyone or else Gordon-Not-Gordon will know, and... nothing good can come of that. So Coolatta calls him _Mister_ and points guns at him (the Gordon living right now panics about that, and the Gordon who can't move watches his research partner's eyes glitter with barely-contained laughter. Gordon once pulled the pin out of a grenade and played hot potato with him while Benrey kept whining at them to put the pin back in; a pistol is _nothing)_ but doesn't tell the others.

At least Gordon-Not-Gordon seems to like Coolatta. It's more than can be said for all of them.

* * *

"You guys don't see that?" Gordon asks, gesturing weakly at empty space.

Harold's face is perfectly still, like he's waiting for the centrifuge to stop or trying to access a thought that one of his clones is having. "See what, Gordon?" Harold asks, but the expression is all wrong. His eyes don't spark like that, hard like black flint, when he's just asking an everyday question. Gordon says something else (he's _always_ saying something else), but Gordon isn't listening to what someone else is using his mouth to say. He's watching his mentor's face. He's watching to see any other indication that Harold's noticed Gordon isn't Gordon, and he's been talking to a fraud.

Gordon thinks this is what hope feels like.

Harold knocks aside one of the small, fleshy creatures, and it spatters against the wall, dead. "Fine shooting, Gordon!" Gordon wants to puff up with mock-pride the way he always does, thank the good doctor for his compliment. (The joke first happened years ago; Gordon doesn't even remember the context. He thinks it might have been something about the carnival they went to, back in the summer between Gordon's internship and official hiring, when he spent twenty bucks trying to knock over the empty milk bottles at a stand, and Harold knocked them all down in one throw. Every time one of them does something right on the first try, every time they save the other's skin, they'll say, "excellent shot," or "fine shooting," or anything along those lines. Gordon's line here is something like, "you're welcome," or "of course," or "what would you do without me?")

"No shooting," Gordon-Not-Gordon says, "that was, that was fists!" Gordon watches it click. And then he _feels_ it click, as well as feeling something crack when Harold punches him in the sternum. "Why'd you punch me?" Gordon hears himself ask, mild and confused like one of his ribs didn't just fracture even beneath the HEV suit.

Harold blinks at him. "I get excited sometimes," he says, and Gordon hopes it means he's realized that getting him back won't be as easy as punching the possession out. If not, the journey is going to start hurting a lot worse than it already has.

* * *

Benrey is and isn't himself. Gordon wonders if something's found them, too, or if they're just trying to outplay Gordon at what they think is his own game.

* * *

Gordon wonders how much of this he's feeling.

* * *

He's gone numb.

* * *

The thing living through him had better be feeling _every last inch of this pain._

* * *

Gordon nearly chokes on sewage water trying to escape, and he can't even get out of the fucking pits because his arm's cut off. (Because Benrey got his arm cut off. And– and Bubby, but– _do your job right, and he's gonna be dead soon,_ and then everything hurt, and he didn't know if the groaning was him or the thing living through him or both and the smell of iron in the air the feeling of a dull knife _sawing—_ his fucking arm is gone. Benrey cut his fucking arm off. It is and isn't his arm, but it's his body even though he can't pilot it, and Harold fractured his rib and Dr. Coolatta's shot at him but– but– _fuck,_ everything hurts. Everything hurts, and he's not even around to feel it.) "There's a world in your dreams," hisses his mentor, "and _I need to go there."_

Gordon wants to go there, too. He wants to be anywhere but here, trapped behind a glass wall made from his own eyes.

* * *

Gordon crosses his arms as best as he can, and he can _feel_ his face pulling up into a smug expression. Bubby sets his palms against the glass as Harold beats at the frame, and Gordon is using it as a threat. (Bubby is scared, but he's not scared of Harold. He's scared of Gordon. Scared of whatever is pulling at him, and that couldn't be stopped with the strings cut. Gordon wants to shatter the glass himself and get him out of there, wants to hide under the blankets back in his dorm and pretend none of this ever happened.) 

Gundy didn't talk about her tube, but she talked around it. She never took projects that would involve testing an animal in a cage, and she wouldn't go into the walk-in freezers where the samples that needed to be cold were kept. She was one of the younger batches – somewhere in the hundreds of tested formulas, looking only about forty, as opposed to Bubby's seventy – but she still avoided doing anything that might get her put back in her tube, and that was after years of The Powers That Be slowly but surely improving the Scientist growing process to be less horrific, weeding out the power-trippy bastards that liked to take the job. He can't imagine what kind of memories this is dredging up for Bubby, one of the first Scientists. 

Gordon takes a bribe and doesn't notice how Bubby and Dr. Coolatta look at each other, even though Gordon does.

* * *

"What happened to your arm?" Benrey asks. It's an attempt at a joke, or maybe it's an attempt at an apology, but it doesn't matter either way. Gordon-who-isn't-there can feel the tear tracks down his face. Gordon-who-isn't-Gordon sits down. Neither of them says anything else.

* * *

He's not... there... for a lot of it. There's only so much of yourself you can see and hear before you stop paying attention. Before you learn how to take the hits and keep staring off into the unfocused middle distance. He sees a lot of death and a lot of violence, and he knows that his body is creating some of it, and he just... thinks about sitting in his dorm, tucked into a pocket of warm air under the blankets, watching his friends play Super Smash Bros and creating elaborate rivalries and alliances between their characters to make him laugh.

* * *

Benrey's trying to make him laugh. 

The world is crashing down around them, and still, Benrey is trying to make him laugh. He doesn't know how much of this _is_ Benrey, and how much of it is something like what Gordon can't take his body back from. Some of it is his friend. Some of it is still trying to make him laugh. Gordon isn't laughing. Gordon is pointing his arm up, and it feels like he's squeezing his fingers into a fist even though he knows he doesn't have those fingers anymore.

Gordon can't close his eyes, but he can stop looking at the bursts of colors and shapes around him and letting his brain interpret them as people and bullets and skeletons and whatever else. It's not there if he isn't thinking about it. None of this is real if he pretends he can't see it.

* * *

Harold sends Gordon-Not-Gordon a message, and Gordon opens his eyes in a bed. "Are you quite alright, Gordon? You seem to have had quite a scare!" Gordon... Gordon looks up. _Gordon looks up._ Harold is sitting beside him, a pleasant smile on his face, and Gordon tries to hug him, but it– he nearly falls over the bed's railing, and Harold has to get to his feet and do a weird semi-kneeling crouch to keep Gordon from hitting the floor. "Gordon?"

"Harold," Gordon manages, and his voice is the same voice he's been hearing, but there must be some difference in it because Harold's eyes well up with tears. "Fuck, Harold, I'm sorry—"

"None of that!" Harold insists, pulling him into an extremely awkward and uncomfortable hug. "None of that. We're just... happy to have you back."  
Gordon can't breathe, and he's half-falling out of the bed, and _everything hurts,_ but he's back in his body, and he can _move,_ and, and... "I killed Benrey."

Harold sighs, squeezing Gordon tighter. "We did everything we could."

"I... I _killed..."_

Harold lets him go, helping him back into the bed. Gordon's in a hospital bed, he notices, and then Harold puts a hollow, plastic hand over Gordon's remaining one. "We think Bonobo may have been in a similar boat as yours, Gordon. Nothing could have stopped him from trying to murder all of us! And... we couldn't have stopped you from killing him, either. I'm sorry."

"They don't die," Gordon whispers. It's his voice, and it's... they're his words, but they still feel distant? Not like he isn't saying them, exactly, but it seems wrong. Surely, that can't be his voice. He sounds like he's about to start sobbing, or like he already _has_ started, and that's not right. Gordon doesn't feel sad; Gordon isn't feeling anything right now. Harold runs a hand up and then down along his shoulder. (Distantly, Gordon registers that he's not wearing the HEV suit anymore. It doesn't seem important right now.) "Th– Haro-hold, they do– they do-ho– hon't—" but then there's so much air in his lungs and any words that might have come out are replaced with an awful, scratchy cry. He's crying. Why the fuck is he crying? Benrey doesn't die! They're going to be fine and come back in and start saying dumb shit about Janeway and Chakotay any second now; what does Gordon have to cry about?

Harold just sits there. Just holds his hand, unable to do anything more without damaging the hospital equipment that's hooked into Gordon. "I know," he says, softly. "I'm sorry."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is getting updated on my days off, so see you guys next Tuesday maybe!!


	3. AND THANK *YOU* FOR PLAYING!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so this very abruptly turned into not One Superbly Long Fucking Fic but _2_ fairly long fics, connected but definitely needing to be separated, so now. less chapters and my first series!! the update schedule for this one is looking like tues/thurs, but I have no IDEA about the next one. we'll find out together! anyway, THIS chapter: The Aftermath. gordon continues to go through it!!
> 
> warnings for:  
> -continued hospitalization  
> -shaky relationship dynamics (you try being stable after *gestures at black mesa*)  
> -referenced character death  
> -denial about character death  
> -GUILT  
> -mentioned funerals  
> -weird nightmares (that might be hard to parse because I intentionally fuck with the laws of grammar)  
> -more texting  
> -Mental Breakdown Haircuts
> 
> be safe, have fun reading the chapter!! I had fun writing it :)

Gordon didn't wake up right after the message was sent. He learns from a surgeon who's telling him about the procedures they still have to take care of that Gordon woke up nearly a month later. He wasn't in a coma, or anything, just... _extremely_ not lucid. They had to amputate his right arm above the elbow to deal with the sepsis and the Potion's after-effects on his failing immune system, so Gordon doesn't have a gun for an arm anymore, which is good. He doesn't have an _arm_ anymore, either, which is. Fine. He can deal with that.

He can deal with missing Passover, too. It's sad, but it's– what was the alternative? Ask Dr. Coolatta and Harold to _drive here_ and sit around the hospital bed with a barely-conscious Gordon for a dinner he probably wouldn't even be able to have because of the pain meds? Yeah, no. It's fine. He'll live.

The third (eighth, but third that he's conscious for) week of Gordon's stay in the hospital, Dr. Coolatta stops by for a visit; Gordon smiles weakly up at him. "Hey," he says, seeing the two trays of cafeteria food that his partner smuggled up to his room, "my name's—"

"Don't," he says, almost a snap, and Gordon doesn't. Coolatta inhales and exhales. "Dr. Freeman," he starts slowly, "you– I'm going to give you this bre– uh, br... breakfast. And you're gonna. Eat it. Okay?" It's lunchtime. But there are some rituals that you just don't break, and Gordon's not going to deny the doctor this.

"Dr. Coolatta," Gordon answers, holding out his hand to accept the tray, "I would love to. Might... need a little help, though? Just like... a-actually, did you get napkins?" Dr. Coolatta passes him the tray and then rustles around in a pocket for a moment before holding up a fistful of plain brown paper napkins, and Gordon huffs a little. Of course, Coolatta got him a bunch of extra napkins. He thinks of everything. "You're the best, man." Coolatta smiles a little, sitting down at Gordon's bedside and placing his own tray on his lap, pulling two little plastic baggies of utensils out of yet another pocket, and opening them both so they can eat.

Lunch is... slow. Gordon has trouble twirling the pasta, but it only takes two 'I said I _got it,_ doctor,'s for his partner to back off. (He knows that Coolatta feels guilty, and he knows that he's just trying to help, but. Still.) "Thanks, Tomfoolery," Gordon mumbles.

Coolatta lets out a breath like he didn't know he was holding it and shifts a bit in the plastic hospital chair. "I keep... I th, uh, think you're gonna call me 'Tommy,' and then you d, uh... uh, you don't. Do that?" It sounds sort of like a confession, and Gordon nods slowly, unsure of where this is going. "I w... I don't think that um... I don't want you to call me 'Dr. Coolatta' because it's– i-it feels like. Not you? And bec- c, cah, uh. 'Tommy' was Not You, so..." Gordon sets his fork down and reaches out, setting his hand palm-up on the bed railing for his research partner to take. Coolatta does, squeezing lightly. "My friends call me Tomer," he says finally, and Gordon squeezes back.

"Tomer," he repeats with a smile. "Assuming we're friends?"

"No :)"

"Wh– dude! Don't break out the smileys—"

"We're luh– lab... co-workers, Dr. Freeman! Fraternization is– is strictly disallowed."

Gordon snorts, catching up to the joke, and agrees, "Oh, yeah, big no-no. My bad. You definitely shouldn't call me Gordon since we're not friends and everything."

 _"Gord_ on, _Free_ man," Tomer says, a little mockingly, and it takes Gordon a second to realize ("My name is _Gord_ on, _Free_ man, and I'm going to get all of us out of here, okay? Does anyone _know_ anything?") who exactly he's mocking. Tomer's grip on his black plastic knife tightens, and his face pales a little, and Gordon's willing to bet he just realized the same thing. "Fuck," he says, which makes Gordon bark a startled sound that might be a laugh, "I– I'm sorry, I d– uh, did– didn't mean—"

Gordon interrupts, "It's alright." Tomer's mouth stays thin with discomfort and something else that Gordon can't identify. The air has gone taut with something awful and unspoken that neither of them is ready to speak on just yet. If they ever will be. Gordon forces himself to smile as he says, "I can't believe I said you were _five;_ what the fuck's wrong with him?" Tomer offers a sharp huff of a laugh, and Gordon's smile settles a little more genuinely. He lets go of his friend's hand and goes back to twirling his pasta.

(They have lunch together every Monday and Thursday, at the very least, and Gordon appreciates the company. He knows it's partly the guilt that makes Tomer come by, but it's also an adaption of their previous routine. Gordon learns how to eat one-handed without getting his meal everywhere except his mouth, and Tomer learns how to avoid hospital staff noticing the food he's smuggling in, and they both sit there and just enjoy each other's company. It's nice.)

* * *

Bubby doesn't like leaving the house. Gordon knows a handful of things about the Scientist, and this is probably the... fifth? Maybe the fourth thing that he's learned in the month and a half after they escaped Black Mesa together. "I'm allergic to _everything,_ Gordon! It's hellish!" Bubby snaps, bundled up against the light on the other side of the laptop screen. Gordon clicks his tongue judgementally.

"Oh, we're– we're doing excuses now, huh. You know what I think? I think you just don't like me."

"Of course, I don't like you; you want me to expose myself to Grass!" Gordon laughs, and Bubby raises an eyebrow at him. "It's no laughing matter, Gordon. I could die if the wrong pollen blows at me. You're laughing about an old man dying? That's kind of fucked up!" Gordon laughs harder. (The orderly who changed the bandages on his arm and is now switching out his IV bags is doing a bad job pretending not to be amused.)

Gordon shakes his head and attempts to school his expression. "No, I'm– I'm sorry, Bubby—"

"You should be!" Bubby interrupts. He trails off into grumbling, and Gordon rolls his eyes.

Trying again, "I'm sorry. I should know better than to ask the guy who got my arm cut off to come and see me." Bubby freezes in place, stock-still, and for a second, Gordon thinks that the feed is just frozen. (The orderly is giving him a concerned and shocked look.) Gordon clears his throat. "That was– that was a joke," he says. "I know that wasn't—"

But Bubby cuts across him again, this time with, "I was me, for that." Gordon pauses, eyes flickering down to his sheets while he processes that. He... didn't know that. He knew that the entire Science Team spent some time being Not Themselves, but he'd assumed that Not-Really-Bubby was present during the betrayal. Maybe the hours leading up to it, when he kept whispering with Benrey. "I thought– I mean, you were slowing us down! I wanted to go home. I, ehm. There wasn't anybody else who made me think to– ah, except for." Silence. "...you know." Gordon knows.

"It's okay," Gordon says, honestly. Bubby makes a disbelieving sound, and Gordon looks back at the screen, back at the man who isn't quite his friend, but could be. (He looks like an older, less professionally-dressed Gundy, which hurts. It makes sense, considering that they're made from the same stock, refined and reprocessed throughout generations of imperfect scientists trying to create Perfect Scientists, but... it still hurts.) "Really, man. I... it fucked me up, obviously, but. Y'know."

"I really don't."

"Me either, honestly." Bubby laughs, sharp and loud, and Gordon smiles awkwardly. "I know– I. I _knew_ one of your little sisters. Burgundy. Uh, something like... thirteen U—"

"13U-125-0ND," Bubby says, easy and immediate. "Dr. Coomer said she was his lab assistant after you went and got yourself a paying job."

Gordon nods. "Yeah. Her. She's– was, a lot like you." Bubby's glasses make it hard to tell, but Gordon's pretty sure that he's looking away. "She spilled acid on my arm, once," Gordon says plainly, which makes Bubby shake himself back to attention, and Gordon can't help but grin. "It wasn't her fault, just an improperly-secured seal, but—" he holds up his left arm, displaying the small wash of chemical burning across his forearm— "it mostly made me think of that."

"Mine was on purpose."

"Yeah, and so was making you give me five dollars to let you out of—!"

"That wasn't you."

"Wh– j– bec– sh– it still happened!"

"Doesn't count, dumbass."

"Well– I tried to kill you with grass! So! We're even, okay?" Bubby starts to try and argue another point, but it's Gordon's turn to interrupt, and he does. _"We're even,_ Bubby. I forgive you."

Bubby glowers. "I've never heard anyone forgive someone threateningly before."

Gordon slumps back into his bed and sighs, "Yeah, well. I'm talented like that, I guess."

The corner of Bubby's mouth quirks up. "I guess you have to have _some_ talent," he teases.

Gordon grins back at him, defending, "Hey! I'm also pretty good at killing old men!"

"You let plants do the fighting for you, pussy."

"That's _Doctor_ Pussy to you."

(The orderly snorts and then pretends that they were just coughing.)

* * *

When he's discharged from the hospital, Gordon spends a week in Harold's guest bedroom. (Bubby only picks him up while he's still sleeping and sets him down at the table for breakfast twice. Gordon threatens to lock him in the front yard beneath all the cedar trees.)

He spends another week after that in _Tomer's_ guest bedroom. (Which is... actually just his home office, which is actually just a shitty nook created by an architectural flaw in his apartment complex. But it has a futon and a foldable desk in it, and the wifi's fast, so Gordon can't  
complain.)

And then he finally finds a studio apartment for rent and starts re-accumulating knick-knacks and shit. It's fine. It's normal. It's lonely and awful and boring as hell, and it's fine.

* * *

There's a large sum of money wired into all of their respective bank accounts from an unknown source, which Gordon is willing to bet has _something_ to do with Tomer's dad, but he doesn't mention it. They all burn a good chunk of it on hospital bills, and then another chunk organizing funerals for their friends that didn't make it out of Black Mesa. There are six, total. Burgundy, Burdett, Dr. Backman, Jefferem Laurey, Harold P. Coomer II, and Joshua Reardon. When they've finalized the list and are starting to work on finding funeral homes that don't need bodies or proof of identity, Tomer puts a careful hand on Gordon's shoulder and asks, not quiet, just soft: "What about Benrey?"

Gordon blinks. "What about them?" Tomer raises his eyebrows meaningfully, and Gordon. Gordon keeps his hand flat against the table, even though he doesn't have that hand, because he can control his own body, and he's never letting his phantom limb make a fist again. "He's not dead."

"Has it ever taken this long before?"

"He's _not dead,_ Tomer."

Tomer squeezes his shoulder. "Gordon," he says, louder and still with a softness that's starting to smother, "I– I want them to be okay, too, but—"

 _"They're not dead, Tomer!"_ Tomer sits, silent, and Gordon realizes that Bubby and Harold have gone just as silent. Because Gordon is shouting. "Sorry," he says, at a reasonable volume, "I– they're not dead. I don't... he'd make fun of me for years if I held him a funeral because I– because—" _I shot him,_ is the end of that sentence. Gordon swallows down something like honesty and something like tears and says instead, "Because he got shot." Tomer must notice the passive voice, but he still doesn't say anything. "He's not dead," Gordon says again, and he doesn't know who he's really saying it to.

Benrey doesn't need a funeral. Because they're not dead.

* * *

He's at the secluded cove he found up in Los Ojos, at the state park that he chose for the jailbreak _specifically_ because the website said a lot of little, private beaches were open for tourists, watching the green sky shot through with orange clouds. Tomer and Benrey are farther into the lake, having a good time trying to drown each other, while Harold makes his way back to the shore. "The sunset's beautiful out here," Gordon says quietly, even though he doesn't think Los Ojos has ever had a sun, and the Scientist next to him makes a wavering sound of... what? Fear, maybe? Uncertainty? "I'll level with you, Gordon," the Scientist says, "I don't know if we're real." Harold splashes up from the water, kicking red sand up as he trudges closer to them. "Of course we aren't real, Bubby!" "Oh. Shit." "I couldn't have said it better myself, Burgundy!" Gordon puts a hand up in a staying motion and asks, "Woah, woah, hang on– since when are we not real?"

A skeleton sings like warping metal.

"Since you lost control of yourself and let Gordon Freeman kill us all, Gordon!" Harold informs him cheerfully, dripping Heron Lake's deep red water onto the shores of the tiny beach Benrey found for them. No, no, that's not lake water, it's... it's blood. "Dr. Coomer, are you okay?" Gordon asks. "Oh, I'm feeling greater than ever; you just killed me, is all!" "No, no, I wouldn't—" "It doesn't fucking matter what _you_ would do, Einstein. You let the Not-You take over." "But—" Out on the lake, there's another melodic scream. Benrey's taller than a skyscraper and sinking beneath the waves. Gordon stands up and runs to go save them, but he can feel his skeleton becoming leaden, rooting him to the spot. His bones pull his right arm up and reach out to them, but then he squeezes that hand into a fist, and the lead drips out into keratin bullets, impacting in crescent-moon craters, even through the thousands of miles that his friend has sunk into the horizon. "You're a murderer," a skeleton tells him.

Gordon wakes up.

* * *

Gordon stands in all-black, his blazer torn, and watches the six coffins be buried, and he covers the mirror in his bathroom, and he sits down on the hardwood floor of his apartment and reads old text conversations while his phone's plugged into the kitchen island's outlet.

_From: benny_  
_nooooo don't move into balkmesa dorms youre so sexy aha_

To: benny  
wow you think I'm sexy?

_From: benny_  
_ic an;t be friends withe unsexy ppeopl_  
_it jus t doesnt Work_

To: benny  
and since we're best friends, I'm the sexiest  
that's how that works no takebacks

_From: benny_  
_NOT IF YOU MOV EINTO DORMS BRO_  
_bro back mlesa dorms... nasty_  
_just_  
_bro_  
_bro just stay in yyur apartmetn?_

To: benny  
but free rooms  
and I can stay at your place longer  
and I can Feasibly Visit dr. coolatta and harold

_From: benny_  
_but yo'ull be so unsexyb bro_  
_we can"t be friends if ur tHAt unsexy_

To: benny  
but bro we're best friends

_From: benny_  
_:/_

To: benny  
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN

_From: benny_  
_sorry idk u_

To: benny  
DUDE

_From: benny_  
_we were nveer friends AcTuallY?_

To: benny  
BRO, I DID NOT  
1 SMUGGLE YOU OUT OF BLACK MESA  
2 DRIVE SEVEN HOURS TOTAL WITH YOU IN THE TRUNK  
3 FIND A DESERTED BEACH WHERE PEOPLE WOULDNT NOTICE YOUR ALIEN SHIT  
4 GET SAND IN MY ASSCHEEKS  
FOR YOU TO SAY WE'RE NOT FRIENDS

_From: benny_  
_yeah sorrry i'm blockign youre number actually?_

To: benny  
THINK ABOUT THE SAND, BENREY.  
THINK ABOUT IT.  
IN MY ASSCHEEKS.  
BECAUSE I LOVE YOU.

Gordon isn't sure if he started laughing or crying first, but he's doing both, now, the tears running down his cheeks and catching in his beard and making his hair stick to his face. So much of his hair is tangling in his mouth, and he has to keep spitting it out, and— and he wants it off. He wants all of it off.

Gordon cuts as much as he can manage with the left-handed kitchen scissors that he had to buy special and then shaves half of it off with his beard trimmer before it jams and dies, and he can't look in the mirror, but he knows it looks awful and– and he killed his best friend.

The thoughts aren't in any way related, except that he's standing in the middle of a destructive mess he caused and shouldn't have catalyzed, shedding pieces of himself, and no one's here to poke him into laughing at it all. They've always come back. They're going to come back. He's going to come back, and he's going to make fun of Gordon for fucking up his hair, and the silence in his apartment is so absolute that Gordon can't breathe.

It wasn't really Benrey, and it wasn't really Gordon, but _Gordon killed Benrey._ They're not dead forever, but they're dead now — how is Gordon supposed to be _okay?_

Gordon's not okay. Obviously, Gordon's not okay; he just shaved half his head with a beard trimmer. He drops it in favor of his phone, which is still lying face-up on the kitchen counter.

To: Dr. Harold Coomer  
Hey, sorry, can you come over?  
I might be having a nervous breakdown??  
I definitely tried to shave my head.

_From: Dr. Harold Coomer_  
_364TWRGUdk cdjhk87OGAyoBYUKgs_

Gordon is still standing, with his charging phone in his one remaining hand and a halo of scattered black hair and a beard trimmer on the floor around him, when Harold comes in without knocking. "You missed a spot," he says. Gordon, annoyingly, starts crying again. Or maybe he just never stopped and didn't notice until right now, under scrutiny. Harold closes the door behind him and takes off his shoes in the doorway, putting them against the wall and walking further into the apartment in just his socks. "Do you mind if I assist you, Gordon?" Harold asks, reaching into his jacket and producing an electric razor that seems to actually be for hair.

"No," Gordon manages, setting his phone back on the counter and scrubbing at his eye and then scrubbing it again, harder, when the motion gets tiny pieces of hair embedded in it. "Please."

Harold talks as he works, sitting Gordon down on the tiny balcony (where Gordon should have done this in the first place, but he can sweep the floor later) and running the razor over and around his skull. Most of the words are unintelligible beneath the roaring buzz of the razor, but Gordon still likes hearing his mentor's voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tommy and gordon are jewish in this fic!! this, and the fact that tommy's full name is tomer, is ENTIRELY because of tumblr user loverboygordon, who you should check out because his art is very good :^)


	4. [LOADING...]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI I'M SO SORRY THIS IS LATE!!! AAAH LIFE GOT IN THE WAY BUT I'M BACK NOW!!
> 
> warnings for this chapter:  
> -mentions of the gun arm. like. a lot.  
> -more weird nightmares  
> -sub warning on the nightmares: weird body horror??  
> -more grief and guilt because That's Just How It Is  
> -the trans agenda  
> -jewish characters & celebrations written by a gentile author who did a lot of googling  
> -gordon-typical incorrect food opinions  
> -forzen :/

"'Scuse me," Gordon says, edging past the person at the 7-11.

The person doesn't let themself be edged past. "Dr. Freeman?" Gordon nearly gets whiplash turning to look at them, heart picking up the pace so quickly he's sure they can hear it bursting out of his ribs. But they don't look shocked exactly, and they aren't reaching for where a concealed weapon would be – not that that necessarily means anything – and. No. Hang on. Gordon knows them (him?) from... Black Mesa, obviously, but—? "Dr. Freeman, it's– i-it's Darnold." Gordon doesn't know a Darnold. (Does he? The name sounds kind of familiar, but he can't match it to the face in front of him.)

"Uhhhh," he starts and then doesn't finish.

Darnold's mouth purses, seemingly a little insulted– which is fair, Gordon thinks– and he prompts, "I was head of the Mixology Department?" Gordon blinks, looking at the tiled floors to cut out the visual interference with his train of thought while he tries to drag up the memories.

It rings a bell, faintly, but he has no idea about anything other than what's being presented to him. Darnold, former Black Mesa employee, head of his department, probably the one who pushed for the Powerade Reservoirs. Wait. No, there's something else he can't quite steer his train of thought towards. Darnold, head of the Mixology Department, the man standing in front of him in a sweater even though it's nearly June... "Dr. Pepper?" Gordon hedges, and Darnold nods. _"Right,"_ and he'd snap his fingers in recognition if he weren't holding four sodas by their bottlenecks with them, "yeah, we... I went to the meeting about Pepsi-Cola's corrosive properties, and you gave a presentation." Darnold's eyebrows raise, and Gordon gets the sense he's made a misstep somewhere, so he adds a quiet (but honest), "I liked it. Your laser pointing really helped."

Darnold's eyebrows raise higher. "I– Dr. Freeman, I'm flattered, but I– really was expecting the fact that I turned your hand into a gun that shot fingernails to be– to stick out to you a little bit more." Gordon blinks again.

Hm.

It takes a second longer, during which he and the Mixologist awkwardly stare at each other, but he _does_ remember wanting to throttle Gordon for being so cavalier with his insults and doubts toward another scientist's life work. "Huh," Gordon says. He thinks he remembers not-quite-himself calling Darnold a clown and accusing him of lying about his Potion's properties, too. No wonder the Mixologist looked annoyed when Gordon didn't recognize him. "Yeah, you'd think I'd remember that!" Darnold sticks out his lower lip consideringly and then bounces his head to the side in agreement, which makes Gordon chuckle. "Sorry, I– I-I really don't have _super_ clear memories of... most of what was going on during the Resonance Cascade. It was– hoo, man, it was _a lot,_ y'know?"

Darnold nods enthusiastically, saying, "I do, yes. I-I was lucky to get out before everything collapsed in on itself. How did– oh, but, i-it'd be rude to take up more of your time. I just wanted to say that, since you _are_ Dr. Freeman and not someone I mistook to be Dr. Freeman, that I'm glad you made it out alive. I-I tried to tell Tommy a similar thing when I saw him in– i-in a bowling complex, but it wasn't actually him, and things got, very awkward very fast." Gordon furrows his eyebrows, bemused, and Darnold waves a hand dismissively. "I-it's not important. It's good to see you again, Dr. Freeman."

Gordon asks, "Do you have a phone?" Darnold turns back to him and cocks his head slightly. Gordon starts transferring his sodas and chips to the space between his upper-right arm and his ribcage before deciding that no, he can't actually fit them all, so he just sets them on the shelf next to him, in front of the Campbell's soup. "If you wanted, we could call, later, and talk about it? Or we could uh, we could meet up somewhere, or..." Gordon pulls his phone out of his pocket and opens up a new text conversation, offering it to Darnold, who looks at his face and then at the screen, back and forth, quite a few times before cautiously accepting it.

To: (505) 327-6653  
This is Dr. Freeman.

Darnold hands him the phone back, and Gordon tucks it back away before beginning to pack everything back together so he can carry it. Darnold hesitates a moment and then asks, "Would you like any help carrying your snacks to the register, Dr. Freeman?" Gordon looks down at his left hand, where the bottles are straining the webbing between his fingers as he tries to carry them all.

"Uh, actually. If you're– I mean, if you're offering, that'd be nice."

* * *

The skeleton keeps stepping on his feet, even though it's leading. "Quit being an asshole," Gordon growls, spinning away from it only to be caught at the end of his arm like a rope. "I dunno what you mean," it says in glowing greens, "we're best friends. I would never hurt you." Gordon's lab coat flares out as he spins on the balls of his feet and lets himself be pulled back in against the skeleton's ribcage. "You cut my fucking arm off," Gordon snaps. It isn't what he means to say, and Benrey counters with, "Yeah, calm down." This isn't right. Gordon's own skeleton climbs out of the end of his bleeding arm and growls, "Shut the _fuck up,_ man! Just stop– for five seconds, stop– you- g- _stop!"_ Gordon reaches out for the skeleton and grabs it by the throat, trying to yank his voice back from it, but his hand meets chilled flesh, and Benrey's hands are on his, and he looks so _angry._ "I never should have let you in here," Benrey tells him, but it's just their jawbone moving independently of their eyes, which are glowing silver and blue like rain means they're in pain, and Gordon's skeleton presses a tight fist to the side of their head and even through the helmet, it's enough.

Gordon gasps himself awake, tears down his face. "Shit," he breathes, and he puts his hand over where his arm had to be amputated, above the elbow, to get rid of the awful infection and the gun. There isn't a gun. He's not a threat.

* * *

Bubby grew up in Black Mesa, underground, and never left. Perfection goes a long way, but being exposed to thousands of entirely new allergens for the first time goes farther, as evidenced by the fact that _grass_ makes him get the sniffles. Gordon thought he was joking about that, but nope! He's literally allergic to grass. Paired with his aversion to sunlight and decision to never follow a formal dress code ever again, it means that Bubby dresses like if a vampire decided to buy their whole wardrobe from – no, that's too nice. Bubby dresses as if a punk, vampire teenager (from the eighties) decided never to buy anything and instead dumpster dove for their whole wardrobe.

Today, for example. Gordon's officially done with bedrest after recovering from top surgery, and he and Harold arranged a picnic in a public park to celebrate that he can actually move around and get out of the house again. It's the tail end of July in Albuquerque, and Bubby's wearing at least three layers (none of them matching or even slightly coordinated), fuzzy socks, gloves, massive sunglasses over his regular massive prescription glasses, and a big black sunhat that provides shade for everything in at least a two-feet radius. Looking at all the conflicting stripes and plaids has given pretty much everyone a headache, but it's also led to the invention of a fun new game: Who Can Steal Bubby's Really Floppy Hat For The Longest? Harold's the reigning champion, but the team is gathered in a public park for an evening picnic, and Gordon has a plan.

He's gonna be King of the Hat Hill.

Gordon waits until the sun's gone down and the Scientist is engrossed in a spirited argument with Tomer about Potential Metal Sludginess Levels to sneak up behind him and snatch the massive black sunhat off of his bald head. _"Hey—!"_ Bubby sputters, flailing blindly at him, but Gordon jumps back, slapping the floppy hat on top of his _own_ bald head. (He's not actually bald, but it's only been about a month and a half since Harold helped him shave his head, and Gordon's hair is so curly that growing it out to ponytail length takes _years,_ so he might as well be.) "Oh, very mature, asshole! Kick an old man while they're down!"

"Smaller hats would be harder to grab," Gordon points out sagely. Then he blinks and repeats, "While _they're_ down?"

"I'm trying it out," Bubby grumbles defensively, struggling to untangle unwieldily-long legs in an even more unwieldily-long skirt from the park table's bench. Gordon must make a small sound of surprise or something because Bubby glares up at him from behind massive sunglasses. "What? Are you transphobic?"

Gordon forces down a snort. "Uh, yeah," he says as flatly as he can manage. (Which is pretty flat because, again, top surgery.) "I'm– I have a _severe_ phobia of trans people."

"You should!" Harold chimes in from his place on the ground, poking at an anthill. "We're _very_ threatening, Gordon!"

Tomer nods, using the commotion to reach across the wooden picnic table and steal Bubby's soda. "I can– I, uh, transed my gender and... and, uh, now I can! Kill! People." Gordon points at him in Bubby's direction as if presenting proof.

Bubby raises their eyebrows. Tomer smiles politely at them, and they announce, "Fucked up!" It's so matter-of-fact that Gordon can't help but double over laughing. Bubby snatches their hat off of his head – twenty-seven seconds, new record, Gordon's King of the Hat Hill, now – and sits back down on the bench with their legs on the outside, to better stand up and take their hat back from any thieves. Like Tomer, who immediately grabs it from them and falls backward onto the ground to get away from their enraged, flailing grasp.

* * *

Gordon wakes up after a nightmare, and the first thing he does is make sure the phantom fingers of his right hand are splayed.

* * *

They're having Rosh Hashanah dinner together, and Gordon's on a phone call with Tomer because he wants company while he makes the food for it. (Some of the food for it; he was very clear about this being a potluck. Gordon probably couldn't cook a full Rosh Hashanah dinner for five people, even _with_ two hands. He's taking care of the challah, the apples and honey, and he's making matzo ball soup. That is _more_ than enough to deal with.) "I'm not gonna _buy challah,_ man!" Gordon laughs, his phone pressed between his shoulder and his ear as he tries to separate the dough into strands. It's harder than cracking the eggs was, but definitely less annoying. Braiding doesn't involve having to pick out a hundred tiny shards of eggshell. And challah in general is a lot easier than making the soup was – it was mostly just chucking things in the instant pot, but he had to cut everything up, first, and that's just _frustrating_ without a second hand to hold everything in place. If nothing else, it made him glad that he found a recipe he could make in two hours on autopilot back in college instead of having to try and look up an entirely new one now.

Tomer, over the phone, argues, "It's– less stressful, Gordon! And I bought the– the, uh... vortigaunts!" Gordon blinks, uncomprehending, at his kitchen sink for a moment before he remembers that one of the suggested names for the strange many-eyed aliens was 'pomegranates,' and he snorts.

"You mean the vonneguts," he corrects.

There's a rustling that sounds like it might be nodding as Tomer agrees, "Yeah, the ex-wives!"

Gordon laughs so hard his phone drops from his shoulder, bounces off of the edge of the counter, and smacks into the kitchen floor with a hard _thwack._ "Fuck," he shouts, still wheezing, "fuck, Tomer, I dropped my phone, and my hand's all doughy!" If Tomer says anything, Gordon can't hear it. "And those are different! You can't _make_ pomegranates!" Gordon deliberates for half a second if he should just wash all the dough off and pick his phone back up or wait until he's finished braiding it, but he hasn't even managed to separate one strand yet, so he just turns on the sink. "Sorry," he says once he's recovered his phone, "I'm gonna– you know what? I have gamer headphones; I'll just plug those in and put my phone in my pocket."

Tomer says (probably repeats, judging by his tone), "I _can_ make pomegranates, Gordon! Are– can you not make things with your powers?"

"I don't have powers, man!"

"I think you just n– nee, uh... n... should just try better!" Gordon scoffs, rolling his eyes as he plugs the headphones in. "We– we're gonna love dinner even if it's storebought, okay? It'll be– nice!"

"It'll be nicer if it's homemade," Gordon counters, rewashing his hand. Wait, why is he using his hand to make the four strands? He can just cut it with a knife – that's gonna be so much easier. "And I didn't get a lot of excuses– or, like, _time,_ honestly– to make challah when I moved to the dorms, so it's– I missed it, y'know?"

Tomer hums. There's quiet on his end of the line while Gordon cuts the dough into quarters. "I wish we'd– I, I think... we should have met earl– er, errr, earlier! And without ev– the, uh, ResCas being so... we could have– had Passover together." Gordon pauses as he sets the knife into the sink, smiling softly. It's a really nice thought, and he needs to take a second to let it sink in.

Dropping the knife and pulling one of the quarters of dough away to start rolling it into a tube, "There's always next year, right?"

"Yeah," Tomer agrees, his smile audible, and Gordon grins back even though Tomer can't see him.

So they have dinner together. The whole crew does, Darnold included and Tomer's dad excluded due to dimension-hopping issues, and it's a mess of a potluck because none of them coordinated except for Gordon and Tomer. Harold shows up ten minutes early with brisket and tzimmes, Darnold brings wine and _more_ apples and honey, and Tomer brings the promised vonnegut-vortigaunt-ex-wife-pomegranates, as well as a leek and potato salad. (Which _is a salad_ because when you mix vegetables together and put some dressing on top, it's a salad! Yes, even if they're cooked! It's a fucking salad, shut up– no, shut up, _Gordon's right,_ it's a salad. Who's hosting dinner? Gordon? Yeah? So he gets the final say, and he says it's a salad, _fuck you.)_

Bubby shows up ten minutes _late_ with a can of beets _(one single can of raw beets)_ and an entire reusable grocery bag full of different brands of challah rolls, which is probably for the best, since Gordon fell asleep while waiting for _his_ to cook, and he's a really heavy sleeper. It took five minutes of the smoke alarms blaring before he woke up.

(Harold eats it, but if you gave Harold asphalt and told him you'd cooked it, he'd eat it.

...honestly, if you gave Harold asphalt and told him it was asphalt, he'd eat it.)

* * *

October sucks.

Not a lot of the ResCas memories stuck around, but Gordon remembers the skeletons. He remembers that he couldn't see them, even when he could, and that they swarmed each of them at the end of it, and that he still jolts awake after hearing the earsplitting tone one of them spit out in Sweet Voice.

And they're everywhere. It's Halloween, and it seems like every single person in Albuquerque is decorating appropriately, so Gordon is seeing skeletons out of the corners of his eyes and jolting to attention ninety times a day.

October sucks, but when he's getting ready to spend a day with Darnold, helping categorize and create Potions for a party he's going to host, Gordon finds a thick brown leather jacket in his trunk that still smells like static and saltwater when he presses his face to the collar.

None of the skeletons ever ask him to give them their jacket back. That helps a little more than it hurts.

* * *

Gordon needs to find Gundy. It's something important that he needs her supervision on, and Harold's clones are everywhere, but the man himself is nowhere to be found, so Gordon needs to find Gundy. A skeleton cocks its skull at him and asks, "G– where... where are you going, Mr. Freeman?" But that's not right; Tomer calls him Gordon. This must not be Tomer. "You're not real," Gordon tells it, and he's pretty sure that's what he meant to say. He keeps crawling through the vents, but he gets turned around, and the skeleton is there again. "where are you going?" Benrey asks him, but it's not Benrey because Benrey's jaw doesn't move like that. Gordon-Not-Gordon calls, _"Bubby!"_ A bony hand grabs him by the wrist, and he can feel _his_ bones scarring under the acid she spilled. "That's not my name, dipshit," she says. "Where the fuck are you even trying to go?"

Gundy slams a hand through the bottom of the vent and pulls him to the ground, hard. "I want to go Home," the Scientist says, and Gordon hears himself say, "Me _too,_ man!" It's not him. Gundy found Not Him, and now the experiment's ruined.

Gordon wakes up tired, which isn't new. He rolls over and grabs at his phone, grumbling in frustration when he can't find Gundy's number and has to type it in manually.

To: 131250  
sory abt he experiment im nto here right notw

_From: 131250_  
_Error: Invalid Number. Please resend text message using a valid 10-digit number: sory abt he experiment im nto here right notw_

Shit, he forgot that Black Mesa has their weird VPN shit that blocks any digital communication from outside approved devices. Gordon had to get a new phone after the ResCas, so– _oh,_ Gordon thinks, looking at the watercolor screen and feeling the world snap back into place like a dislocated shoulder. The ResCas. Looking through his own eyes like active sleep paralysis. Stepping over Gundy's dead body.

_Right._

* * *

There's a kid in the line at the coffee shop behind him who keeps staring. Gordon doesn't know why. (He's wearing a leather jacket that's a little too small, and he still hasn't looked into getting a prosthetic, and he knows he looks tired, but it's a hipster coffee shop at eight in the morning. Everyone in the shop looks tired in ill-fitting clothes.) Gordon's waiting on his order, and the kid is leaning against a wall, still staring, so Gordon turns and asks, "Look, man, can I help you?"

"sorryitriedtokillyourfriendsdog," the kid spits out, all in one breath and in a voice that's _way_ scratchier and deeper than Gordon was expecting, and his tired brain lags behind for a solid fifteen seconds.

No, scratch that, it's still lagging. _"What?"_ Gordon asks.

The kid must mistake the exhaustion for anger because their shoulders come up to their ears defensively, and they whine, "it wasn't _me,_ okay? like– Like it was, but it wasn't and it _suuuuuucked,_ and i– I didn't wanna hurt you guys, I just wanted to sit down but then everyone started _yelling_ and i wasn't even me!" Gordon's eyebrows knit with confusion, but they don't elaborate on any of the incomprehensible bullshit they said; they just cross their arms and pout, the expression throwing the thick scar over their eye into sharp contrast with the rest of their face, and– scar over the right eye. Hang on. That's something Gordon recognizes.

Scar over the right eye, whiny voice, a... chair shattering on the ground?

A barista calls, "Gordon?" Gordon walks over to the counter on auto-pilot, accepting the coffee and then turning back to find the kid still leaning against the wall, fucking around on their phone. _His_ phone, Gordon's pretty sure. He was a soldier. Is? No, it has to be 'was' or else he'd be trying to kill Gordon or black-bag him or... or be dead. Didn't they wipe out the whole military? It doesn't matter; he looks so much younger out of the uniform, missing the beret that shadowed his eyes like a bad human disguise. (Like Benrey. Gordon thinks that's half of why almost-Gordon hated him.)

Gordon leans on the wall next to him again, and the kid sneaks a look at him out of the corner of his eyes but doesn't react otherwise. "I don't actually remember your name," Gordon says after a moment when it's clear that the ex-soldier's said his piece already.

"i already _gave_ you my name!"

"I know; can I have it again, anyway?"

"fffffforzen. i– I'm Forzen."

Gordon takes a sip of his espresso and then asks, "How long have you been on Earth for, Forzen?" The kid's face jerks up towards him, the non-scarred eye wide with questions, and Gordon cuts across anything he might ask with, "Your accent, dude. I don't _give a shit_ that you're from Xen, but it's obvious." Forzen slumps, crossing his arms tighter than before and leaning hard into the wall.

"i've only been here for like, 9 months, ok?" Gordon can't help the way his eyes dart to Forzen. It's been eight months since he escaped Black Mesa. Is– did Forzen only have a _month_ to get adjusted to Earth before being in the military? Or less? Was he _born in the army?_ "everything's so bright," Forzen complains, oblivious to Gordon's deeply concerned mental math, "and i didn't even get to be _me_ for like a week. i think i was someone else someone else, not just hatchling someone else. it's messed up, man! i don't like it. i don't even know what the fuck a youtube is, bro!"

Gordon doesn't really know what to say to that. "Sorry," is what comes out. Forzen makes a noncommital noise of annoyance.

"i didn't even graduate."

"I... mean, if you set up a bank account— uh, you're technically a survivor of Black Mesa, right? You might get some hush money wired in there; mine was enough to handle all of my medical shit, so you should be able to cover tuition." Forzen stares at him blankly, his eyes slowly morphing into glittering red spheres bigger than any iris should be, and there's a similarly-colored third eye opening along his left cheekbone. (Gordon's not sure, and he thinks that Forzen's younger, but he's the same general kind of Whatever that Benrey is, and red as ruby means 'you've confused me' in Sweet Voice.) "Uh... do you want me to... I-I can set you up with someone who'll help?"

Three red eyes blink back at him. "what's tuition?" Forzen asks, apparently deadly serious.

Gordon stares at him. A barista calls, "F- um, Frozen?"

"just wanted to say 'm sorry 'bout the dog, dude, damn," Forzen mumbles, slouching off to get his drink. Gordon watches him leave the shop and wonders why he keeps running into people from Black Mesa that he barely remembers when he's trying to get snacks. He sits down at a table and sighs heavily.

(The jacket doesn't smell like anything when he puts his nose to the collar – or if it does, then it's so faint that he can't pick it out beneath the overwhelming scent of coffee and pastries.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for clarification's sake, I hc gordon, darnold, & tomer (on his mom's side) as Jewish, the g-man as a convert, harold as either a convert for one of his (now ex-) wives or Specifically Got Very Good At Cooking so he could contribute to/be a part of said ex-wive's culture, and bubby as. making more of an effort than usual. beets aren't cheap. (are they?? I didn't google that.)


	5. >I WANT TO PERMANENTLY REMOVE THIS GAME FROM MY ACCOUNT

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)
> 
> warnings for:  
> -more weird dreams and weird dream body-horror  
> -just like. straight up body-horror.  
> -breaking and entering  
> -Gordon Continues To Go Through It  
> -minor dissociation  
> -discussions of possession  
> -there's a lot of crying in this chapter  
> -tomer-typical gun unsafety  
> -mentions of character death  
> -all of those coworkers who got funerals in chapter 3 have backstory and lore and I _will_ use this to hurt you  
> -emails  
> -minor injury  
> -guilt  
> -implied aperture science (not really, I just think about that tumblr post a lot)

Benrey keeps stepping on his feet. "Dude," Gordon laughs, "I know you can dance better than this!" He takes a step back, and Benrey follows his lead, the perfect dance partner. "Huh?" Benrey asks. "No, this is my, um. Best dancing. Benny Boy Special. Special for the Feetman." They stomp on Gordon's toes, which hurts, but mostly just makes Gordon laugh. They smile at him and say, "Hey, watch this." Gordon watches in anticipation, and Benrey takes him by the hand and leads him into a spin– and Gordon keeps spinning. And spinning, and spinning, and spinning, until suddenly the guiding hold on his hand isn't there anymore, and he stops, dizzy.

Benrey is holding his right arm. "Huh," Gordon says.

"Mean." He'd been spinning counterclockwise, and it had unscrewed his arm at the elbow. Benrey isn't grinning at him anymore, though; they're staring at the hand they're still holding and frowning. "Benrey?" Benrey's face melts into something heartbroken, and the arm is melting like red plastic held to a gas stove. Maybe that means it isn't real? It should be brown plastic if it's his arm– oh, no, the blood inside is red plastic. "What happened to your arm?" Benrey asks. They sound wrong. Gordon peels off his tourniquet and starts toward him, but Benrey just yelps when Gordon accidentally stomps on his feet and drips more burnt plastic everywhere. "You're hurting me!" Gordon's hand flows, molten, until it melts all of Benrey's flesh away. The skeleton peeks out, screaming Sweet Voice in silver and blue like rain. Everything smells awful underneath the burning of his plastic arm. Like a PS2 controller put in the oven to bake. "We went to Los Ojos," Gordon tells him, or maybe it's some kind of plea, "I don't even know what he's saying anymore—" Benrey says, "gordon feetman—" "We were never friends– I love you—" "in the sand and in the mud—" Gordon's hand is his hand again, and it's wrapped around Benrey's throat, so it isn't his hand at all.

Gordon's eyes fly open, and he grabs at the healed stump of his arm, amputated above the elbow.

Nothing smells like plastic, just the clean ozone smell of the night's drizzling rain.

He sighs heavily, releasing all of the panicked air from his lungs as he slumps into the mattress. The clock on his bedside table says it's two in the morning, and Gordon groans; he only went to bed an hour and a half ago, but he's too shaky and anxious to want to close his eyes again. He stares at the ceiling, listening to the rain as he tries to figure out what he's going to do. Should he go get some water and hope for the best? He's not going to let himself look at his phone because then he'll get trapped in the infinite scroll and not sleep for another six hours. He can't keep pulling accidental all-nighters like that; they're awful for his health. The purposeful ones are bad enough. He sighs again and decides that he'll just let the rain lull him back to sleep. It's loud enough that he can focus on it instead of his thoughts or the memories of the dreams. It's been a while since he's heard rain this loud – since before Black Mesa, at the least, but when _exactly..._

...the rain is loud. His apartment _smells_ like the rain.

Did Gordon...?

Gordon didn't leave a window open.

 _"Shit,"_ he hisses, reaching under his bed and grabbing the baseball bat (Tomer saved the crowbar for him, but Gordon can't stand to look at them anymore) hidden under there and scrambling to his feet. "Hey!" Gordon yells. "If you're still in here, you need to get the fuck out! I've got a weapon, asshole!" (A far more panicky section of his brain is screaming that announcing his awareness of the situation like that was a bad idea. This is how people get shot in home invasions. No one's awake right now; it'd be hours before anyone realized he was gone.) There are keratin crescent-moons in the heel of his hand as he grips the handle, stalking into his living room. There's a lump of shadow on his couch, and Gordon raises the bat slowly. "Hey," he says again, voice as hard and unforgiving as he can make it.

"hey," mumbles the lump.

Gordon freezes.

No.

No, no no no, he's not... he's not dreaming again.

He can't feel a second set of eyes, the ones in the real world, so he has to be awake. But... but he's had this dream before. Benrey is here and Gordon sees him and then _he wakes up_ and there's nothing and nothing and no one, and they're still dead because _Gordon killed them._ "Huh," is what Gordon says out loud, and the bat dangles limply at his side as he walks around the armrest and looks at the lump properly. It's covered in eyes and rainwater.

"you..." mumbles the lump. It sounds like them. It's not them, it's _not_ them, it can't be them because if it is, then Gordon's going to wake up, and he doesn't want to wake up from this. "i cut off your arm," the lump says.

Gordon thinks he's crying. He thinks maybe they both are. "Yeah," he manages, "yeah, y– you did." They stare at each other in the dark, lit only by the eyes and by a single, distant street light with a glow that's shattered amidst the thousands of tiny misting raindrops pattering down outside. "I... killed you."

Some of the eyes bob up and down, like a nod. "yeah. wasn't... fun." They stare at each other, longer this time. Gordon waits to wake up. He doesn't. (He will.) Benrey isn't dead, but he isn't here, either. He can't be. Gordon's going to wake up any second, and it'll hurt just as much as it does right now, staring at what isn't real. "where'd all your hair go?" Benrey asks, eyes an electric orange of fear and still trying so hard to stay on safe conversation grounds.

Gordon's silent crying turns into a full-on sob, and he drops the bat to the floor with a dull _thud_ as he clutches at his mouth to try and muffle it. Benrey flinches at the sound, dozens more eyes opening. "Fuck," Gordon chokes, "fuck, sorry, don't– pl- pl-he-hease don't leave, I'm sorry– I was– I-I wasn't _m-me,_ I sa-haid I didn't know you, of _course,_ I kno-how you, we pl– the sand, a-ha-hand the mud—" Benrey unfolds a body out of what looks like an old purple windbreaker, soaked through, and clings to him in a hug— "and I found your jacket, and it do-hoesn't even smell like you anym-ore, but I still wear it because you're no-hot-hot _here—"_ Gordon squeezes back as hard as he can because if he doesn't then they'll vanish or turn into a pillow and he'll be alone in his bed and the window will be closed and Benrey will still be dead, and Gordon's knees hit the floor. "Sorry," he says, over and over again, "sorry, I'm so-horry, I'm so sorry—"

"you're **you,"** Benrey says in a voice that's just colored light, in a collection of words that are just nails scraping over a chalkboard, "you know me, we're friends. gordon, gordon, **gordon,** friends, we're best friends, you're you, you **know** me."

"Don't go," Gordon whispers.

"don't make me go," Benrey scratches out at the same time.

They sit there, too afraid to let each other go, for a long time. Gordon's knees hurt, and he's exhausted, and Benrey's drenched, meaning that everywhere they touch him, he gets wet, too. It's uncomfortable and awful, and the best hug Gordon's had in months all at once. Eventually, he mumbles, "Can... c-can we go sleep? I'm tired, man." It takes a bit of work, but they manage to pick themselves up without letting go of each other for too long and crash onto the couch. He manages to tug the shawl draped across its back over them both. It'll be the thing that damns him, he knows it will be – he went to sleep under a blanket, so he'll wake up under one, face pressed into a pillow in his bed instead of his friend on the couch, and Benrey's still going to be dead. "Sorry," Gordon says again, sure that he's going to wake up now, sure that he's just broken the dream's fragile hold on reality.

Benrey shakes their head, and Gordon can't see it, but he can feel it. "s'okay. beddy-bye," they say, putting two fingers against the inside of Gordon's left wrist. After a second, Gordon can hear a similar pulse in the chest he has his head pressed against to the one he can feel pounding in his ears. He huddles closer to them, just a little, and listens to the heartbeat that they made for him.

* * *

Gordon gets dragged back to the realm of the living by the sound of an argument. A woman is saying something about... robotics? "Ngh," he mumbles, still mostly asleep, "let Harold do what he wants, Gundy." The argument continues, and Gordon realizes that the voices don't belong to anyone he knows. Neighbors? No, it's too clear to be from beyond a wall, even if they are thinner than they have any right to be. The woman says something mostly lost to his muddled brain, but he makes out 'Jean-Luc' and– as in Picard? Gordon rolls over, scrubbing at a sleep-crusted eye, and squints in the voices' direction. Sure enough, the TV is on, playing the new Star Trek reboot he still hasn't gotten around to watching. Or... has he? Did he turn it on it last night and forget to turn it off? No, because Gordon went to sleep in his bed, not out on the couch.

He's tired. Everything's blurry without his glasses and blurrier still without a fully-awake brain.

Gordon groans, squeezing his eyes shut again. "yo," mumbles something from the screen, "you, um. didn't like it when i watched you sleep, so i. hacked you. needa change your passwords, it's not uhh. not secure." Anything beyond the couch beneath him and the shawl over him are hard to focus on right now, and Gordon isn't entirely sure he's not dreaming, so he lets out a noncommittal huff and presses his face back into the pillow, and lets himself drift.

Gundy sits in a folding chair, tapping impatiently at a glass of something carbonated, and Gordon walks over to sit next to her. "Have you tried the root beer floats?" Gordon asks her, and he thinks that's what he's holding with the hand that isn't a gun. She frowns. "I'm busy." Gordon raises an eyebrow at her and repeats, incredulously, "You're busy." _"Very_ busy, Gordon!" "Uh-huh. You know, I can– I-I can see that you're just sitting there. Doing nothing." The frown turns into a scowl, and she taps faster. It's a weird sound, like teeth hitting the bottom of a teacup and leaving bloody stubs of gum there. "No shit, that's what it sounds like," Gundy snarks, spitting more blood into her cup. She picked out the last of her teeth a while ago, and no more of them clink to the bottom as the soda eats away at the enamel of the first batch. Gordon leans against the wall. "Do you have to let it all, fucking... decay like that?" Gundy spills her drink on his gun arm, and it all sizzles away. "What the fuck else am I going to do?" Bubby asks, holding xir sister's glass and snarling with her bloody, toothless mouth.

 **"gordon,"** Benrey says, and Gordon's eyes snap open. Benrey's looking at him, six asymmetric eyes dull gray with concern and a hand on his upper arm. "good?" Gordon blinks at them for a second, unsure of what the fuck is going on.

He sits up slowly, and Benrey sits back to let him. "I... no? You're– why aren't you... killing me?" Benrey's eyes fill up with black and white static, like a starry night sky, and Gordon isn't sure which instinct he has to blame for the immediate hug he pulls them into, but it happens before he can think of anything else. "Hey, no, what're– why are you sorry? What's wrong?"

His hands don't settle on Gordon's back the way they always do. It might just be the awkward position, half-lying down on the couch, but everything's too far off-center for it to be just that. "fuckin'– bro, you didn't even– _bluhh bluh_ I'm Gordonnn Freemann!! And I don't, **weugh,** Fuck You, I don't have my _passport,_ ouughh. and i– i jus' wanna be nice, man! just wanna fuckin' hug my good buddy and friend and you didn't even– you said we weren't _friends,_ man!" This feels... too coherent to be a dream. It isn't coherent compared to how most humans talk, but Benrey's not human, and this is fairly structured for them. He's not sure what's happening right now. Gordon's in his own body, and he can control it, but distantly. He's hearing Benrey through speakers and feeling their lack of body heat against him through layers and layers of space.

Gordon says, "I'm sorry," but Benrey isn't done talking.

He shouts, **"i fucked up,"** sounding somewhere near tears. "i thought it– you were doing a bit, your honor, but then the lil– fuckin, bony boys just. i killed so many people 'cause they said– they said please and thank you? they kept singing? and you– you weren't right. you were so– you were so fucked up it's– we wanted a hard reset, but that's not. i **know** that's not how you work, i know you—" Gordon pulls back, and Benrey's really there. Flinching back from him like they think he's scared.

Gordon isn't dreaming.

Benrey's alive.

"Holy shit," Gordon says, and he thinks he's actually in his body again, "you're real." Benrey laughs, sharp and singing like crunching bone, and shakes their head. Gordon reaches out and puts his hand on their cheek, and they flinch again, even more rigid, nineteen radioactive-orange eyes flitting up to his face. "You're here," Gordon mumbles. "You're– I didn't kill you for good." This is important. They're both here, together, without the strings pulling at them, and that's– that's real. Real enough.

A few of the eyes blink out of existence, and Benrey slowly brings his hand up to cover Gordon's. "can't kill the homies." Gordon laughs, and then he's pulling them into another too-tight hug. Benrey hesitates, but they put their hands on his back, settling light against his spine like Gordon's so fragile that squeezing back will snap him clean in two. (Maybe he is. It kind of feels like he's made of glass right now.) "are we... okay?" Benrey asks after a long moment, tucking his chin over Gordon's shoulder.

Gordon laughs harder at that. "Fuck, no," he says, "are you kidding me? I've had to see like six different therapists—"

He pulls back and pats his hand over Gordon's mouth to shut him up. "sh, shhh, shut. shut. not you, man! 'course not– we're both **fucked,** i mean– we. us. good?"

The world is blurrier than can be explained away by his lack of glasses, and when Gordon reaches up to rub at his eyes, his hand comes away wet. He's not sure if it's happy crying or sad crying or some other emotion too complicated to put into words. "We're always good," Gordon promises because they _are,_ as long as they're themselves, they're good. They're best friends.

"good," Benrey says, choked up, tucking his head down and leaning into Gordon's chest. Gordon wraps his arms around him and doesn't let go.

* * *

To: Tomer!!, Dr. Harold Coomer, Bubby (xe/they), DR. MELLO YELLO  
hey  
[JPG ATTACHMENT]  
they lived, bitches

* * *

There's the sound of a gunshot at Gordon's front door, and then the sound of rubber soles squeaking very angrily across the hardwood floors. Benrey tenses immeasurably, eyes flicking up, and Gordon folds the hand he'd been playing with up to his chest so that Benrey can feel how his heartbeat hasn't accelerated. "Glad to see you're making good use of the key I got you," he says dryly, looking up at Tomer, who picks his handgun back up from the kitchen counter he set it on and points it at Gordon.

"I- I did it for, expediency, Gordon!"

"Yeah? You gonna... you gonna _shoot_ me for expediency? Tomer?"

Tomer turns off the safety. Benrey sits up, brow furrowed, and shouts, "nnnmgh!! mnn!!! bro!!!! gun safety, tommy, c'mon." Tomer turns the safety back on and then he sets it down on the counter, flapping a vague hand at them. "hug?" Benrey asks hopefully, and Gordon scoots over on the couch to allow the other man to sit down by Benrey. Tomer does so, immediately settling his head against Benrey's chest and an arm around his waist that Gordon does his best not to crush.

Tomer says, "We– everyone thought you were! Were _dead,_ Benrey! Why didn't... d, uh, did you not think we'd want– want to, uh, see you?" Benrey mumbles an incoherent defense, and Tomer pokes them in the stomach. "I didn't– didn't, uh, steal Black Mesa Key Cards™ for eighteen years for a lit– a l, little, uh, attempted murder to make me not wanna be your friend!" Gordon laughs at that, even though it feels a little like an intrusion, and Benrey whines wordlessly, sounding offended and maybe kind of grumpy, hiding his face in Gordon's shoulder.

"took too long to... un-humpty dumpty." Gordon has to suppress a wince at that, even though he knows it's not directed at him. No one blames him for getting everyone killed, for killing _Benrey,_ but it's hard not to feel guilty. Didn't he deal the final blow? He was moving through the world like it revolved around him; it only makes sense that it ended because of him. (Tomer uses the hand on Benrey's waist to flick Gordon in the hip. The doctor's too good at reading him.) "you f– you, fffffffrude. tommy rudelatta. wasn't even tryna find gordon, just kinda." He shrinks away from Gordon a little and mumbles, "thought it was you." Tomer settles into the hug a bit more, readjusting and squeezing Benrey tighter.

Gordon pulls Benrey's hand back up over his heart and snarks, "Really feeling the love, man." Benrey turns to him and wrinkles their nose mockingly, and Gordon laughs, squeezing their hand. He wants to stay right here, forever. "I should probably, um, like... shower, or something. Give you two a minute. And I can– I know most of what I've got is probably gonna be a little big on you, but you can't keep living out of a fuckin'– a, a GoodWill raincoat, man." Gordon shuffles out from under his friends and stands up, stretching when he gets to his feet because he slept for probably eight hours out on that couch, and then he stayed there for another three hours just wrapped up in Benrey, so his back is _killing_ him. He pauses before leaving for the bathroom, though, taking a second to commit this to memory just in case.

(Something that Gordon loves about Benrey is how bad he is at keeping a straight face. Most of the time, he can manage not to laugh at his own jokes, but other than that, he's an open book. But the way they look up at Gordon, dry now but still managing to look like a half-drowned cat, irises big and glowing a thin ring of violet around the black holes of their pupils, is incomprehensible. He's not sure he's ever seen them look like that.)

"Gordon?" Tomer asks, and Gordon starts, blinking down at him. Tomer's looking at him, looking... anxious? He's missing something here. "You said you were... gonna shower?" Tomer prompts, forcing a smile, and Gordon takes a step back toward the bathroom, feeling– he doesn't know what he's feeling. Off-balance. Off-center.

Whatever they need to talk about, it's not for Gordon's ears. "Yep," Gordon says, turning his back on them, "yeah, uh, y– shower. Yep."

He can read a room.

* * *

"Alright," Bubby says, over dinner, "I've held this shit in for a fucking year, now—"

Darnold takes a sip of his soda and says, "Dr. Bubby, I'm pretty sure that you can count well enough to know it's only been, _eleven_ months. _Not_ twelve."

At the same time, Harold chimes in, "Oh, dear, Bubby, that _can't_ be healthy."

"Fuck both of you," Bubby says. Gordon snorts. "Who the _hell_ is Joshua? Why did you just have somebody's fucking baby picture in your locker? What's wrong with you?"

Benrey gasps, chokes on his spaghetti, and then inhales all of it for the sake of continuing on with saying, "my friend!!! josh freerdon. reaman." They let a Gordian knot of spaghetti noodles fall out of their mouth. "ew," he says quietly, before picking up his plate and eating the whole thing, cutlery and all. It's almost like nothing has changed from the days of taking their lunch breaks early to sit together and test the limits of what Benrey could feasibly stick in his mouth without choking to death.

 _Everything's_ changed, of course, but Gordon can almost ignore that.

Gordon smiles as much as he can, too aware of the way it's crooked and pained. "Josh Reardon. He was a security guard on Yellow Shift, and we– Benrey couldn't tell our last names apart for a long time, and he was like, twenty, so we just. I– it was a joke that I was his dad?" Benrey cocks their head at the past tense and blinks with confusion, and Gordon watches as they remember that the last surviving members of Black Mesa are right here at this table. He's sitting to Gordon's right, so Gordon can't squeeze his hand under the table; he hooks their ankle with his own, instead, and then feels a pang of amusement when it makes them sit up ramrod straight.

"And the baby picture?" Bubby asks, looking, if anything, more confused.

Gordon shrugs, a little less tense than it could be. "Shuttershock, man. I think I still have copies of it in my wallet." He shifts a bit (he's not sure if he dislodges Benrey or if they dislodge themself) and pulls the wallet out, ignoring when Benrey snatches an old Best Buy coupon and stuffs it down their shirt. Sure enough, there's a copy of the random baby jpeg he printed out nearly three years ago. He shows it off to the table, sort of proud and sort of hurting and sort of achingly fond. Josh probably would have liked these people.

"Oh," says Bubby. After mulling it over for a moment, xe adds, "You're fucking weird, you know that, Gordon?"

Gordon doesn't bother trying not to laugh. From his seat across from a lab-grown Scientist with minor pyrokinesis, xir biotic boyfriend with twenty different pasts, a half-alien with three PhDs, and between an alien glitch and a Mixologist who routinely makes potions so powerful they melt his glass containment units, Gordon answers, "It's been said."

* * *

Gordon's answering emails (the best part about tutoring people is that it's basically freelance, and he never has to leave the house to do it; the worst part is that he has so many _fucking emails)_ and trying not to say 'fuck it' and lie down and go to sleep right then. He still has like three students to get back to tonight, and that's _after_ the past two hours of work.

Rachna,  
If you're that stressed about exams, I'd suggest asking the professor for an extension. I know that's not always feasible, but there's only so much I can do, sorry. On a more positive note: you're doing a lot better with your FBDs than you give yourself credit for! Just remember to draw the force applied _on_ the particle, not _by_ the particle. If you need anything else from me, I'll help as much as I can.  
Regards, Dr. Freeman.

Fuck, Gordon hates sending emails. Just two more to go.

Callum,

There's a scream from the living room. Gordon scrambles to his feet, knocking his laptop to the edge of his bed as he runs out to the couch and freezes in the doorway. Benrey's glitching, impossible to look at, shaky and bright and– the entire living room is coated in white and brown and gold, dripping from the ceiling. "Benrey," Gordon says, and he's not sure if he's trying to wake his friend up or if it's just the only thing he can think to say. A line of blue snaps out across the floor, leaving a long mark of blank space where there should be wood, and Gordon steps over it to kneel at Benrey's side, saying louder, _"Benrey."_ Benrey says something garbled– no, not garbled. Inhuman. "We're safe," Gordon promises him, grabbing at what he thinks used to be a hand and squeezing tight, "everything's alright, okay? I'm not gonna let anything get us. We're us, and we're real — you're my best friend. It's okay, Benrey. It's okay, we're okay, I promise—" Benrey's hand is starting to hurt, slicing the skin it doesn't clip through, and Gordon squeezes tighter anyway, brings it up against his chest. Lets them feel his heartbeat.

Benrey shrinks into himself in half an instant, opening hundreds of eyes all across his body and curling up into himself, pulling his hand away from Gordon's like he's been burned. "no," they whimper, "i didn't wanna, you said it was okay, i don' wanna—"

"Hey," Gordon whispers, as soft as he can manage, sitting down next to them, "I know, bud. We're friends, right?"

"but it's not enough! it's not– i tried to be me so we could be friends and i wouldn't have to be mean, but we fucking– we hate you, so i go, 'what about the sand?' because you said to think about the sand — i keep thinking about it, and the... the mud, but i... but, but it..." Benrey trails off, staring into space. Gordon sits by his side, not saying anything else. After a long moment, they drop their head back against the couch's armrest and mumble, "sucks having humanbrain." Gordon can't help the sharp huff of laughter that gets from him, and they give him a shaky smile.

"Want some water?"

"mmmmnnnnn. cuddles, please?"

Gordon thinks about the emails he still has to send, and he thinks about the fact that cuddling with Benrey means they'll both fall asleep on the couch again, and he thinks about how much his back hurts. "You– y'know what? I'm gonna get you some water, and we can cuddle in my bed, okay?"

Benrey smacks their lips a few times, looking anywhere but his face, and says, "wow, pretty, um. pretty forward. buy me dinner first. damn." Gordon rolls his eyes and shakes his head, over-exaggeratedly tired the way he was in the very beginning before Benrey picked up on when someone was seriously unamused with their antics. They brighten up a little, shake less, continue, "can't– can't trust boys, they uhh. feetmen only want one thing, and it's **disgusting."** Gordon bites down a laugh, doing his best to glare at them, and they smile back. Until their eyes fall to his hand. The one that's bleeding, and the one that's missing pieces in a way that stings to think about, and the one that Benrey made that way. "fuck," they say, reaching out for it and then jerking back, eyes flitting up to his face like they're expecting him to be scared.

Gordon shrugs a little. "I've had worse," he jokes, but he can tell it falls flat by the way they wince and curl into themself. (At some point, either someone's going to laugh, or Gordon's going to learn to stop making jokes about losing his arm. Probably the latter. He's not going to say he doesn't have complicated feelings about missing an arm; he's also not going to say he blames anyone except Gordon-Not-Gordon or the skeletons for it. Everything in Black Mesa was fucked up, and the rules of reality were loose there. Anything went.) "Do you... teal?" Gordon asks, or offers, or requests; he isn't sure. Benrey's shoulders rise, taut like a wind-up toy, but they reach out carefully and pull his hand toward their face like it's the most precious thing in the world.

(Benrey's been kind of weird like that around him, after the ResCas. Gordon's human, and to something that can shapeshift and heal and _wake up after dying,_ that means Gordon's fragile. In all fairness, he's certainly not invincible.)

The healing beam feels the way spearmint tastes. Benrey's done this for him before, but the Sweet Voice always stuns him like an entirely new sensation. It's an anesthetic and a welcome sort of aching at the same time, and Gordon sighs as the missing spaces re-fill with the flesh that's supposed to occupy them. When Benrey's satisfied with it, Gordon stands up, and Benrey follows after him like an oversized duckling. "I have to answer some emails, and my back hurts every time I sleep on the couch."

Benrey mumbles, "don't sleep then."

Gordon turns over his shoulder with a smile that's supposed to be sarcastic but undoubtedly just turns out endeared. "Wow, enlightening. Never would've thought about that, man." He grabs a glass from the cabinet and fills it with water from the fridge's dispenser, not the tap because Benrey complained about too many krill, and without ice because they keep threatening to bite him with icicle teeth. "Here." They take a long sip and then force a big, too-wide grin that lets the water leak through their teeth, down their chin, and dribble onto Gordon's old sweatshirt. Gordon snorts, punching him lightly in the shoulder. "Don't spill anything in my bed, please?"

Benrey looks offended that he's even suggesting they'd do otherwise. "not a drop," they swear.

"And don't eat the glass."

"maybe a drop."

"Shithead," Gordon mutters fondly, and they tip their head innocently, following after him to the bedroom.

Callum,  
You're doing an excellent job on the conservation of mechanical force equations, but make sure

Benrey's sending little electric shocks up Gordon's neck. He looks down at him and raises an eyebrow. "light gross," they inform him helpfully. Gordon dims his laptop screen as low as it will go and then smacks his right arm over their eyes. "mean," he mumbles, but the shocks stop.

make sure you're using the right formulas. I've attached a PDF that should help clear some of the issues up. If not, please email me back as soon as you can, and we'll see what I can do. If necessary, we can set up a call and go from there.  
[CoMFE.pdf]  
Regards, Dr. Freeman.

Gordon sends it and closes his laptop. "C'mere," he murmurs, tugging at Benrey a little to pull them so their face is pressed against his collarbone where the light will be even less of an issue. "Okay if I use you as a desk for a second, bro?" Benrey mutters something incoherent, stretching a leg across both of Gordon's, and that's hopefully a yes because he still needs to send this last email. He props the laptop on top of their back, and they grumble a little against the thin fabric of Gordon's t-shirt. "Yeah, I know. Gimme like, two minutes, man. Last one."

Gabriel,  
I don't have all that many connections just yet, but if I come across any good history tutors, I'll be sure to send them your way! Sorry I couldn't be of more help.  
Regards, Dr. Freeman.

Benrey mumbles something as Gordon sets his laptop on the bedside table, plugging it in and closing it for good. "What's up?" Gordon asks, settling into bed and putting an arm around him.

"titless," Benrey repeats sleepily, and Gordon bursts out laughing. "mmngh, st– noo, 'm comfy, c'monnn." Benrey pushes themself up and pats annoyedly at the middle of Gordon's chest, frowning when it continues to move up and down because of how hard Gordon's laughing.

"Sorry," Gordon manages. "S– you can't just _say that_ and expect me not to laugh, what the fuck?"

Benrey's frown deepens. "you can't just. be titless. where'd they go?"

"I got top surgery in July, dude!"

"but what did they _do_ with them?" Benrey asks, wonderingly, and Gordon can't believe the person that walked around as him was afraid of the same man that's settled on top of him now. He can't believe anyone thought that thing was him when it didn't love them just as much.

Gordon says, "I bet they filled them with bees and let them fly away." Benrey hums, setting his head back down on Gordon's collarbone, apparently satisfied with that answer. "Goodnight," Gordon laughs, kissing the top of their head and getting another static shock to the face for his troubles.

Benrey keeps stepping on his feet. "Call me Feetman again," Gordon threatens, and they grin at him. "gordon feetman," he says, smug, arms around Gordon's shoulders like an awkward high school sweetheart, dripping lake water down his back. Gordon fixes him with a scowl, stepping back and feeling the beach's bone-white sand crunch and shift under his feet. They follow his lead, the perfect dance partner. "I'm going to burn that scrapbook of pictures you took of my feet." Benrey gasps, scandalized, and Gordon laughs, pressing their foreheads together. They spin together, sand spraying out in an arc, and somehow, Gordon's certain the sand is made up of thousands of crushed skeletons. He grinds his heel down a little harder than he needs to. "my turn?" Benrey asks, readjusting so that they're holding hands and Benrey's spare hand is on Gordon's waist, and of course, Gordon lets them.

He doesn't mind letting someone else lead, this time.

**Author's Note:**

> for some reason I keep accidentally writing really long, weirdly elaborate takes on a post-canon. I just have a lot to say, I guess. anyway. find me on tumblr @localdisasterisk and look at my terrible posts!!


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